Pope: Officials should be able to ‘opt out’ of same-sex ceremonies

According to Pope Francis, Catholic government officials should absolutely be able to “opt out” of participating in same-sex ceremonies and should have the “freedom of conscience” to discriminate against gay people.

Asked by French newspaper La Croix whether Catholics should “defend their concerns on societal issues, ” Francis said “it is up to Parliament to discuss, argue, explain, reason. That is how a society grows.”

However, once a law has been adopted, the state must also respect [people’s] consciences.”

“The right to conscientious objection must be recognized within each legal structure because it is a human right. Including for a government official, who is a human person.

“The state must also take criticism into account. That would be a genuine form of laicity.”

“You cannot sweep aside the arguments of Catholics by simply telling them that they ‘speak like a priest’.

“No, they base themselves on the kind of Christian thinking that France has so remarkably developed.”

Last month, in a voluminous report on “family,” Francis wrote:

In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”